TAKEN FROM THE PRESENTATION (Part A) Chapter 3: Shock and New Orientation Introduction With the Nazis' rise to power, Germany's half-million Jews suddenly found themselves abandoned in the country most of them had considered their homeland. The Liberal ideals that sustained their integration in Germany, as well as the Jewish identity of most Jews, had been demolished. Many took these developments very hard and a significant number emigrated. But after a few months a process of accommodation began, in which many reappraised what it meant to be a Jew in Germany. This process was accompanied by major social changes, which included shifts within the political map of German Jewry, reorganization of Jewish social services, and the development of new educational and cultural institutions. Screen A First Reactions In January 1933, despite all the disturbing signs, German Jews found it difficult to believe that Adolf Hitler could assume leadership of the nation. Indeed, for a brief period after Hitler took over the chancellery, they continued to hope that their situation would not worsen significantly. Editorial: Israelitisches Familienblatt, It is hard to get used to the idea that the new government is headed by an individual whose party has thus far regarded long-term struggle against the Jews as its principal goal. Nevertheless, the leading figures in the National Socialist Party should now conduct a responsible government policy. The new government will be judged by its policy.' (2 February 1933) Belligerent people don't stay in power for long. The Nazis' rise to power hasn't really come as a surprise. Governments used to constantly come and go. We saw SA parades. My late grandmother said, So what, even if he comes to power it won't be for more than three or four months.... Belligerent people don't stay in power for long.' (Aryeh Eitan, Yad Vashem VD 568) More On In a Rural Jewish Community the more traditional Jews, living in rural communities, also adhered to the belief that their lives in Germany could continue unchanged despite the political upheaval. Eric Lucas, son of a family of cattle traders and butchers, describes the atmosphere in his home at that time: It was in early 1933. A shouting, roaring voice thundered from the radio...the same voice that also rose from newspaper headlines… You couldn't avoid him.... The event that we had doubted but also feared had come to pass. What would happen now? What did the future have in store for the Jewish families? Men talked about it at home and at the cattle market.... My father tried to calm the tempers: Most of the peasants obviously don't agree with the new regime, they said so and they made no secret about what they meant... I've lived among these peasants for 30 years and I have many friends among them. Will they suddenly stop being my friends?...Members of the Jewish community organization discussed the matter and tried to calm themselves.... They did not wish to believe, they could not believe, that values they had lived by for generations suddenly became invalid.' (Lucas 53) Eric Lucas, Die Herrschaft, Geschichte einer Juedischen Grossfamilie im Kreis Aachen von der mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum 2. Weltkrieg,' Heimatblaetter des Kreises Aachen, No. 1–4, 1980. Screen B Reactions to Initial Anti-Jewish Measures (April - May 1933) The turn for the worse in the Jews' situation became palpable and painful with the economic boycott on 1 April 1933, and the beginning of antisemitic legislation. Faced with the collapse of emancipation - the very framework for their self image as Jews and as German citizens - the different Jewish organizations responded according to their ideological perspectives. The Liberals : Insult and Sorrow. We, the Jews of Germany, greet the boycott proclaimed against us with deep shame and rage. Its brief duration and its astonishingly quiet implementation does nothing to compensate us for the deep insult and sorrow that we feel.... The actions that followed the boycott were meant to cause harm to Jewish existence at large. The rationale holds that only people whose veins flow with German blood may personally represent the prominence of the state and the dignity of German civilisation.... We do not believe that these principles can stand the test of responsible judgment.... We fear that implementation of these measures will harm not only a part of the German people...but will also add no honour to German civilisation and to Germany's reputation throughout the world.' (C.V Zeitung, 6 April 1933) The Zionists: Struggle for a New Emancipation. German Jewry is convinced that it has fulfilled its civic duties with as much dedication as any other group of the population. On this basis it demands its fair share of living space (Lebensraum) in the new Germany and expects its civil rights to be reinstated. But neither the Jews nor the Germans would be served by a re-instatement of the old situation. Germans and Jews once again face the Jewish question, which requires a better solution than the former one…. Only a fraction of the half million German Jews can emigrate; an even smaller percentage have the prospect of settling in Palestine.... Undoubtedly one cannot let the Jews of Germany starve.... The German Jewish community today must struggle for a new Emancipation, but by new means.... In so much as we are Jews of deeply rooted ancestry who serve the German edifice, we will also avoid the blunders and cliffs over which we have plunged to our present misfortune. (Rosenthal, May 1933) Hugo Rosenthal, German Jewry in the New German Reich' Juedische Rundschau, 30 May 1933. The Orthodox: The Hand of God. German Jewry suddenly faces events and facts so powerful as to speak to our hearts. A question mark hangs over everything that took us so long to attain.... Anyone who believes that Jewish history is meaningful cannot regard this grave ordeal as a coincidence. Only force major can speak to us in this harsh language.... Shall we disregard this hand of God? Mustn't we admit that we are helpless, that all efforts to change our fate have failed, and that the foolish attempts to place our trust in fair-weather friends have been harmful? We dare trust in no one but our Father in Heaven!.... Brethren of the faith! Do not give up! We are being made to suffer greatly, but according to the Prophets, these are the pangs of the Messiah, which foretell the future Redemption.... Be faithful to God, because He and His deliverance will not fail!' (Israelitisches Familienblatt, 6 April 1933) Union of Jewish Front Veterans (RjF): For the Blood That We Shed. Letter to Hitler and Hindenburg, 4 April 1-933: Esteemed Reichskanzler! The Union of Jewish Front Veterans, representing 30,000 Jewish soldiers who served at the front in the German army during the Great War, we call the following to your attention: Of the half-million Jews in Germany, 96,000 men participated in the war in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, including 10,000 volunteers. Twelve thousand of them fell. [A list of their names is attached.] On the basis of our sacrifice of blood and our service for the Fatherland, we believe that German Jews have the right to full civil equality in Germany. We observe in great pain how our dignity is being offended and the economic basis of Jewish existence in Germany is being undermined... We therefore request: 1. That no occupational and economic harm come to former soldiers from Germany's wars or to their families.... 3. That the appropriate forces among German Jewry be integrated into the army...'. Dr. Loewenstein, Union of Jewish Front Veterans, German Federal Archive, Koblenz, E 611927/8/9. Pessimism & Self-Censorship. The authors of articles in the Jewish-German press during the Nazi era were afraid to express their feelings because of the vigilant surveillance of the German censor. Nevertheless when they felt free to speak openly, some expressed much more pessimistic evaluations of the situation. On 27 March 1933, a delegation representing German Jewish leadership with a group of British Jewish leaders and representatives of world Jewish organizations in London. In a csession the German Jewish delegation gave such a gloomy report, that their counterparts found it hard to accept. Still, after the meeting, the mission from Germany issued a reassuring press release to the public. More On Personal Responses: German-Jewish Identity in Crisis. German Jews' personal responses to the events of April 1933 were varied. While some witnesses recall that their daily lives were not seriously affected in the first few months of 1933, most testimonies describe a grim atmosphere, frantic decisions to leave Germany, and instances of suicide. In their subsequent memoirs, certain Jews depicted the harsh experiences of the boycott day as a watershed in their attitude toward, and identification with, Germany. This was my Leave-Taking. [During the boycott day] I went to the synagogue like many other Jews. There I saw desperate faces.... Never before did Jews pray more ardently than on that evening on, which they were experiencing their being Jews so fundamentally.... And when, as always, I consecrated the Sabbath there, in the circle of my family, and came to the passage in the prayer You who have chosen us from among all the peoples' and saw my children, who were looking at me with innocent and questioning eyes, my composure was at an end, the whole weight of the day's experiences struck me, and I broke down.... This was my Leave-taking from everything German, my inner separation from what had been my fatherland - a burial. I buried forty-three years of my life...I could not be a German anymore.... I went to the graves of my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, and spoke with them. I returned to them everything German that I had received from three generations.... I cried into their graves: You are mistaken. I, too, have been misled. I know that I am no longer a German. And what will my children be?' The question remained open. (Richarz 312-3) Edwin Landau in M. Richarz ed., Jewish Life in Germany, Memoirs from Three Centuries (New York 1991). More On A Wave of Mass Emigration The onset of anti-Jewish measures prompted a spontaneous wave of mass Jewish emigration from Germany, which peaked in April-June 1933. In all, 37,000 Jews left Germany in 1933 – about 8 percent of Germany's total Jewish population at the time. Most emigrants were members of the liberal professions expelled from the civil service, eastern European Jews who returned to their countries of origin, Zionists who decided to settle in Palestine, and political refugees who surreptitiously fled Germany to nearby European countries to avoid internment in concentration camps. (An additional 16,000 Jews left Germany in 1933, but later returned.) Escape to Prague (1933) [Sexual] relations were considered a profanation of the race. Three of my [women] employees visited me one night and warned me, advised me to flee.... The father of a fourth employee, a sixteen-year-old girl, came to me at 3:00 that night. His sixteen-year-old daughter had been coerced by the rigorous interrogation into signing a statement that I had had relations with her. Afterwards, she sank into despair and nervous collapse, screamed that she was a murderer, wanted to kill herself, and forced him to rush to me and warn me.... I spent that night getting my papers ready, outwardly composed but inwardly shuddering with fear that it was too late for me to escape. I had to leave everything behind - my large, flourishing factory, my print shop, my home with its 7,000-volume library, my father's oil paintings. . .the lovely garden that I had personally tended, and thousands of other things that I cherished.... I slipped out with my suitcase like a thief, fleeing from the bestial masters of Germany, from the land of Goethe, Schiller, Kant and Schopenhauer, Heine and Mendelssohn. I had to speak to the housekeeper calmly, as if nothing were wrong and as though I would return in a few days' time. I could not even take a last glance back, despite the pain of parting.' (Martin Feuchtwanger 173) Martin Feuchtwanger, Zukunft ist ein blindes Spiel (Munich 1989). Screen C Pleas for Unity and New Leadership After the shock had set in that their sworn enemies, now in power, were intent on antisemitic persecution, the German Jews slowly began to seek ways to orient themselves to the new reality. At first, the responses of major Jewish organisations reflected the organizational fragmentation that had long characterised German Jewry. However, gradually elements in the Jewish public began to call for a reassessment, beginning with an overhaul of the leadership. After a while the call for Jewish unity grew louder and major Jewish leaders came to see it as the key to Jewish survival. More On The Generation Debate In the Israelitisches Familienblatt, one of the main organs of German Jewry, the editors posed the following question: Who should assume leadership - the young generation or the old?' For the Younger Generation: …German Jewry needs a political and community leadership that sees the current situation through the eyes of the young…[First World] war generation.... [The] defense of lost positions cannot give German Jewry… its future, but rather a spiritual effort to create new possibilities of civil existence for German Jews.... The leaders of German Jewry…have accomplished great things…during the period of ascendancy and efflorescence until they attained emancipation and full equal rights and civil status for the Jews. This era of democratic liberalism has come to an end in Germany. In these new times, a new and different struggle on the Jews' behalf is needed. Only members of the Jewish community who do not bear the burden of past struggles can wage this struggle with the help of Jewish youth.' Max Reinheimer, Frankfurt, Israelitisches Familienblatt. (18 May 1933) For the Adult Generation: No one objects to letting the young generation merge into the leadership, even more than in the past. However, the decisive question is not age alone but the personality needed for leadership.... Today, everything depends on the ability to centralise the Jewish leadership. It is no longer advantageous to spread responsibilities across too many shoulders.... It is especially important in this very situation to select the few who will assume responsibility and to make sure they have the requisite qualities for leadership and assumption of the yoke of responsibility.' Leo Kreindlei, Berlin, Israelitisches Familienblatt, (18 May 1933). More On The Tachlis Debate On 14 July 1933, the Israelitisches Familienblatt, under the headline Tachlis (Yiddish: Getting do to serious business) invited German Jewry to participate in a public debate on a comprehensive plan for their future under the new circumstances. The invitation led to a flood of letters to the editor which, according to the editor, expressed every imaginable proposal and all possible scenarios that we may face in the near future.... The extreme demands included organised mass emigration, on the one hand, and over optimistic hope that things would return to what they had been, on the other.' Two weeks later, on 27 July 1933, the newspaper began to print some of the responses. Proposal to Restructure the Jewish Community: The community committees should be composed of small numbers of representatives. Too many people participate in them today. Political parties should be banned; they have brought us very little benefit.... Members of the [First World] War generation should be brought into the leadership, along with rabbis, whose status in the future community leadership should be reinforced. Wealth and status must not be criteria in choosing the leaders, as they have been thus far, but only diligence, ability, character, and dedication. A pre-requisite, of course, should be absolute allegiance to the current government - a community leadership hostile to the government must not be allowed.... A community leadership of the kind described would be able to take actions that can enhance the community's prestige both inwardly and outwardly, and may even dispel prejudices.... Only thus will it become possible to conduct negotiations withthe authorities...'. P.G., Hannover, Israelitisches Familienblatt, 27 July 1933. Resettlement vs Self-Help The situation of German Jewry cannot be improved by complaining or wishful thinking. Palestine, as valuable as it is as a solution for individuals, cannot currently offer a far-reaching solution because it cannot absorb Jewry en masse. For this purpose, it will first be essential to assure possibilities of extensive vocational retraining of the Jews in Germany [for agricultural and physical labor].... About two or three years later, we will begin to resettle - to build totally new Jewish villages and peripheral towns.... Within 30 years, it will be possible to relocate about half the Jews from the large cities to the countryside, thereby letting a normal Jewish economic structure coalesce. L.A., Hamburg, Israelitisches Familienblatt, 27 July 1933. Screen D Establishment of the Reichsvertretung (National Representation) The dynamic set in motion by the events of April 1933 gathered momentum. Many German Jews believed it necessary to reassess their condition and establish an agency that would promote their interests in a concerted fashion and speak for them with one voice. This need led the existing Jewish organizations - Liberal, Zionist, Orthodox, and others - to establish a joint umbrella agency, the National Representation of German Jews - the Reichsvertretung. Overcoming inter-organizational divisions, which delayed its final establishment until September, Rabbi Leo Baeck - a figure who transcended party affiliations and whose spiritual authority was accepted by all constituents in the Representation - was installed as its leader. Proclamation of the Reichsvertretung, September 1933 In the new State the position of individual groups has changed.... We must understand this and not deceive ourselves. Only then will we be able to discover every honourable opportunity… The German Jews will be able to make their way in the new State as a working community that accepts work and gives work.... We place our faith in the active sense of community and responsibility of the German Jews, as also in the willingness to sacrifice our Brothers everywhere.... We will stand united and, in confidence in our God, labor for the honor of the Jewish Name. May the nature of the German Jews arise anew from the tribulations of this time!' National Representation (Reichsvertretung) of German Jews: Leo Baeck, Otto Hirsch – Stuttgart, Siegfried Moses – Berlin, Rudolf Callmannn – Cologne, Jacob Hoffmann – Frankfurt, Leopold Landberger – Nuremberg, Franz Meyer – Berlin, Julius L. Seligsohn – Berlin, Heinrich Stahl – Berlin. Add short Biographies / pictures with roll-over : Leo Baeck – Liberal Rabbi and Jewish Thinker Otto Hirsch, Stuttgart – Lawyer, CV Leader Siegfried Moses, Berlin – Economist & Jurist, Zionist Leader Rudolf Callmann, Cologne – Lawyer, CV Leader Jacob Hoffmann, Frankfurt – Orthodox Rabbi, Religious-Zionist Leader Leopold Landberger, Nuremberg – Lawyer, Jewish Front Veterans (RjF) Leader Franz Meyer, Berlin– Merchant, Zionist Leader Julius L. Seligsohn, Berlin—Jurist, CV Leader Heinrich Stahl, Berlin – Businessman, Chairman of the Berlin Jewish Community Juedische Rundschau, 29 September 1933.